Ch. 7: The Forest Shadow
Chapter Seven The Forest Shadow Ronnie Wendy pulled rather wearily to a halt outside the front doors of Regional High School. Darkness was deepening from the blue twilight of a late January evening, and the remains of a barred red sunset still glowed behind the low sprawling brick structure. He sat for a moment, his back to the school, gazing out east—the astronomy class wasn’t due to start for another ten minutes and he should still have time. The valley that forms Winsted winds southeast and east between great ancient hills, not so much hills as chunks of highland left behind in the great delvings of the years, by earthquake and by ice and by water, and through gaps in them the long ridges of Barkhamsted rise like walls farther east. Where the valley leaves Winsted, between Wallens and West Hills, it is filled by a great rounded dome of glacial sand that forces Main St to climb a stiff rise on its’ way out of town, before it descends into the bowl of Super Stop & Shop. Where once farms occupied the open knoll, there now Regional sprawled, angular and graceless, as if dropped like Dorothy’s house onto the hill. Big level sports fields were gouged into the hill, with parking lots winding among them. Over the east hills the evening sky was a deep, utter blue. Stars were gleaming ever stronger, frozen in the heaven, like eyes filled with tears and trapped in time forever. Ronnie locked his bike to the bike rack self-consciously, and walked along the wide sidewalk with the air of one walking down enemy territory and hoping to avoid notice. As a lifelong homeschooler—even high school he’d done at home—public schools were a complete mystery to him, places to be regarded with wariness and suspicion. He glanced at the college-style cafeteria through big windows on his right, half in wonder and half in cautious distrust. The main entrance was of high square panels of glass, a double door at the bottom, fronted by four brick columns. A pretty girl lounging in the entry was animatedly talking with somebody he couldn’t see. He tugged at the door and found it locked. The pretty girl obligingly opened the door before returning to her very important conversation with a boy her age. Ronnie flashed her a quick thank-you smile as he pushed open the inner doors. Inside was a foreign planet. Brick walls and blue-grey carpet, display cases of trophies, sections of panelling and harsh yet dim overhead lights. The place was laid out apparently on a grid of squares, with halls turning sharp corners around blocks of offices and storage rooms. Low halls, too broad for their height, created an odd, squashed, almost underground feel. Signs were posted at almost every corner announcing the astronomy class would be in room 254, but the numbering system was eccentric at best and he was close to despair when he stumbled on a floor chart. It didn’t give his location but he did remember passing the Severy and so was able to map out a route. It was far from deserted, even though school was several hours out; he heard voices up distant halls, once a girl or two laughing, and always the pound of feet from the gymnasium. Sometimes the gruff voice of the basketball coach was audible as well, shouting commands or lectures. He went up a side hall lined with blue lockers which he had dismissed as a dead end, and several corkscrew turns later he came to the block in which the science rooms were. He was late, he saw with annoyance: this was the first class and he hadn’t wanted to miss it. He went in and found a small room, filled with people about his age, watching a slide. Pulling the one empty chair from beside a handsome girl with dark hair cut square at her shoulders like a helmet, he set it against the wall, eased off coat and backpack, and looked around at the astronomy class. They were about 20 in number, most of them between late teens and mid-twenties, except for one lady plainly of middle years and Ronnie himself. He noticed only seven were girls, of varying degrees of attractiveness and quite astonishing variety of features. One guy in the back next to him wore the most outrageous dreadlocks Ronnie had ever seen. The classroom was small, with short black-and-white tables instead of desks, and small green-backed desk chairs. Cabinets and radiators lined the bottom three feet of wall, and above this poster boards ran around three sides of the room. One had a large topographic map of Winsted made by splicing several maps like Karzahni’s mask, and a few space-related posters had been tacked on beside it. The far wall had a whiteboard. In the center aisle the professor had set up a laptop which was projecting a blue computer screen onto the whiteboard. The screen was too big, the top half overlapping the whiteboard and onto the wall. Right now it was displaying the stars around the eastern evening sky, Orion most prominent. The strange figure with his bow was one of the few constellations Ronnie could recognize. “You might ask yourself, What is a constellation?” the professor was saying now. He was in his fifties, wearing a cranberry dress shirt with a brown bow tie and black dress pants. Little more could be seen of him in the darkened room. He stooped forward as he walked back and forth. His voice was a little ponderous but firm and incisive. “As we know it, it means simply the apparent pattern the visible stars seem to lie in when viewed from our Earth. Few of those stars are even close together; for instance, Alkaid and Mizar in the Plough, or as it is known today the Big Dipper, look to be next to each other. But as you can see if we move the software for a closer look,” he moved the mouse carefully as he spoke, rotating the screen so that Orion was almost out of view, “they are actually 59 and 108 light-years away from us, respectively. Some stars in other constellations have an even greater variation. So it is only a constellation at all because these stars happen to occupy the same plane in reference to Earth.” He turned the lights on quite abruptly and the class jumped. The professor smiled a little. He had grey-blond thinning hair and a careworn heavy sort of face with sharp absent eyes behind his glasses. “Now the strange thing about stars in general is their gravitational bond. We have galaxies upon galaxies, but most of them are in clusters, which implies gravitational attraction. Even given the massive black holes found at the center of many galaxies and deduced to be at the centres of the rest, the given total of mass in the universe is not at all enough to provide this gravitational attraction binding stars into galaxies, and galaxies into clusters, and this is called the missing mass problem. “Yes?” as Ronnie raised his hand. “Does the universe miss mass through its’ own fault?” he said with a straight face. One student was overcome with smothered guffaws, but the rest including the professor just looked at him in utter incomprehension. “Sorry, Catholic joke.” he muttered. “But I was wondering,” he went on, “is dark matter currently the explanation for the missing matter?” “No, that has been mostly settled, in fact,” the professor said, recovering. “It was posited that there was non-reflecting matter making up the required mass, but other theories have superseded it with explanations of the inflationary universe and the increasing acceleration of stars. But the real crux of the problem remained so until this very year.” He shambled back over to the light switch and flipped it, plunging the room back into darkness. Some of the students groaned and one of the girls, a pretty lass with long brown hair on Ronnie’s right, giggled. The professor carefully moved his mouse around until the screen abruptly switched, showing what looked like a spectrum diagram. “As it so happens, it was a chance discovery by an amateur researching the precise nature of light. Light, as I’m sure you all know, is electromagnetic energy travelling in waves, which when they reflect off objects enable them to be seen. Put more precisely, it is radiation consisting of oscilliating electric and magnetic fields perpendicular to each other and to the direction of origin. When it interacts with matter it forms particle photon bundles. The spectrum ranges from the invisible very short waves such as ultraviolet and gamma, all the way through blue, green and so on, up to the very long waves such as infrared. Each element has its’ own color and causes particle bars to appear in a spectrum of light, and that is how we know what stars are made of. But as I was saying, this amateur by the name of Hunter Light—“ “Any relation?” several students interrupted. “As it so happens, yes, I am that amateur. (Ronnie was overcome with images of plunger-headed cucumbers and was having great difficulty keeping his laughter silent) I was, as I said, researching the nature of light. I had few actual instruments, at least until my calculations won enough attention for scientists with better laboratories to join with me. Most calculations these days aren’t even done by us, but by computer simulation. And the simulations I was running indicated a most unusual type of trace energy in the spectra of stars from several neighboring galaxies. It was barely there. I would have dismissed it as an anomaly if it had not repeated itself every time I ran the numbers. That’s often how the greatest discoveries are made, in fact, when a seemingly unrelated thing just does not add up.” He began indicating the several rainbow bars of the star spectrums in question, and Ronnie was soon a little lost as Professor Light began getting into the math end of things. He did, however, grasp the conclusions drawn, which added up to the startling realization that it was not gravity that held galaxies together (“we assumed this, because gravity is the only such force we know”), but a hitherto undetected form of trace energy. “I know almost nothing about it yet,” Professor Light went on. “I know it exists and that it supplies the lacking principle to hold the galaxies together, but I have yet to find a way to directly observe it or its’ effects. Yale recently expressed interest in my findings and offered to obtain me a grant, with which I can hopefully construct an instrument capable of more exact measurements.” He turned the lights back on and began passing out a sheet with different constellations named, for the students to write down which one they would do a presentation on. Ronnie looked around at the class. The pretty one next to him had ripped jeans, but they looked far too clean and blue to be old, and he decided it must be one of those fashions again. Another girl wore a pink coat with brown lining; she looked like an Easter egg. “Mr. Light?” said the Easter egg, raising her hand. “What exactly is dark energy?” “Ah, that is a very good question.” replied Hunter Light. “It isn’t something anyone has seen directly, as with my discovery; it’s simply something supposed to be causing certain observed effects. The stars are spreading farther and farther away from us, which was one of the reasons that led to the Big Bang theory; but according to the law of entropy they should be slowing down. They aren’t. Recent measurements of the redshift show the stars are actually accelerating, and there’s no reason they should be doing that. Therefore it is held that something is pushing them onward, and that something we call ‘dark energy.’ ” “How many—“ said Ronnie, forgetting to raise his hand. Clamping one hand over his mouth as he caught himself, he raised his hand. Mr. Light nodded. “How many black holes are there?” “Well, it is supposed there is a black hole at the center of every galaxy, and galaxies number in the billions…but if you mean how many are actually known to exist? Somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, would be my guess.” Ronnie was looking right at Professor Light, so felt no need to raise his hand. “Have we actually observed them, or do we only guess from their effects?” “Well, there is the Hawking radiation that is unable to be held by gravity as it has no mass, and hence escapes from black holes; but our best evidence is, as you say, from effects. One star, for instance, seems to be seen amid four others, and yet the spectra for these five stars are identical. That means we’re getting five different images of the same star, which implies that something in between is warping the light-rays, sort of flinging them off at different angles the way the current of a whirlpool pulls objects out of their path, and that something would be a black hole.” Afterwards Ronnie approached Hunter Light where he was putting away the laptop. “Mr. Light, I have a question. What exactly sort of instrument would be capable of detecting this trace-star-energy?” The professor took off his glasses and put them in a shirt pocket. “Well, as a fact I have already created schematics for what would be required. It would not be very large, in fact it would probably fit inside a standard room as it would have software that would feed into it the images of starlight from powerful telescopes, which it would need in order to do the detecting. As to the inner workings…because of the equivalence of mass and energy, the principle is basically that of a mass spectroscope with electric and magnetic fields rearranged and modified. By the way, I believe I’ve seen you before somewhere.” “My name’s Ronnie Wendy.” said Ronnie. “I do remember meeting someone named Light before, now you mention it…St. Joseph’s, wasn’t it, and you had your little daughter Bell with you?” “Yes, yes, of course, that was it!” exclaimed Hunter Light. “You were discussing that bizarre rhyme of the bells. It’s almost all she talks about.” “Really? Does she have any idea of what it means?” “You know, that I really don’t know.” He glanced at the clock. “And I’m late. And she’s going to be mad at me. I think I’d better run.” “A pleasure meeting you again, sir.” said Ronnie, shaking his hand. “Same here. You’re homeschooled, aren’t you.” “Yes, how did you know?” “Homeschoolers always have trouble remembering to raise their hands.” said Mr. Light with a smile. Ronnie looked embarrassed. “When you do get that device going,” he said, “can I be around when you test it?” Hunter Light considered. “You can watch, I suppose.” he said. Forest couldn’t believe it when he looked out the window. Snow like a fog was filling the air, falling so thickly that the dark island across the bay was invisible. Great thick bars of snow stood a foot high on every branch. He’d never bundled up so fast in his life. “It snowed!” he said happily as he passed Mrs. Lake coming out of the bathroom. “Yeah, and now I won’t be able to go in to work and somebody is going to have to shovel out the car…what a good thing I parked way at the far end last night…and shovel out the gates so the plow can get through…” “I’ll get to it.” said Forest with his half-smile. He opened the door and hurried out into the morning. The deep soft secrecy of silence that goes with heavy snow lay upon the island. Forest guessed a good 14 inches had already fallen. With an ecstatic grin he buttoned his big black rubber pullovers and ploughed his way around the island, admiring the fairy wand the snow had waved to change the pines into elvish ghosts and gowns. He came back in after a while to get breakfast, and his mom already had hot chocolate waiting and oatmeal on the stove. “After you eat and warm up, honey, I want you to get started on the shoveling.” his mom said fondly as she sat down with a cup of coffee. She had scarcely put it to her lips when the doorbell rang. “That’s weird.” said Mrs. Lake, almost dropping her mug. “It did that once before, and yet it didn’t ring when I pressed it.” “Maybe it was why.” said Forest, and grimaced. Maybe it was because it was pressed by you, he had been thinking. The doorbell rang again. In the snow-muffled house the sound was deep and eerie, like the call of a ghost. “Maybe someone’s at the door.” said Forest. “Go and look, if you want.” shrugged Mrs. Lake. “I’m going to ask Cornie if he can fix doorbells.” Forest paused, halfway to the door. “Who is Cornie?” he said. A strange coldness at the name was creeping over him. “Oh,” Mrs. Lake giggled, and Forest knew without turning that she had gone several shades pinker, “He’s a—friend I know. That’s all.” The doorbell rang again. Forcing himself to move, Forest made it to the door and opened it. “Lovely weather, isn’t it.” said the Man in Brown. Snow crusted the fur cap on his head and his silver-plaid scarf had a big patch of ice from his breathing through it. “Is your mom there? I wondered if you needed your walk shovelled.” Forest relayed this over to Mrs. Lake, who called out to know how much he wanted to do the car, gates and sidewalk. As he only asked $30 for that, she gave him the okay to go ahead. Forest bolted his oatmeal in record time and put on his boots and coat. “Honey, don’t worry, you don’t have to shovel now.” his mom said from the table. “I want to help, though.” said Forest and hurried outside before she could start objecting. The sidewalk was already done. The man in brown was shuffling back through his own tracks out the gates, and Forest hunted up the shovel from the porch and followed. Brown had an old metal shovel with a black square blade. Snow was falling so fast it had already put an inch over his old tracks. “So tell me, Forest,” said the Man in Brown, “how are things on the island?” Forest started sweeping away the light powdery snow with his new orange plastic shovel. The man in brown had already bent to the task, but at Forest’s continued silence he stopped and leaned on his shovel and stared quizzically at him. “Um, fine I guess.” said Forest curtly. “If you only guess, then they are not all right; if they were all right, you would know it.” the other answered. Forest rested his shovel and looked up. “Brown,” he said, “who are the people on Club Island?” “Club was only one of its’ names,” replied the man in brown. “Russel’s it was called until recently, and Wall’s, depending as a rule on who dwelt there. But the current owner is one Cornello Black.” Forest dug in viciously and snow flew in every direction. “Mom has a friend she calls Cornie.” The man in brown did not answer, and when Forest looked up he saw an expression of deep alarm upon the weathered features. “What’s wrong?” “Your mother is in grave peril.” Brown said. He had shovelled faster than Forest thought, and swinging the gates open he walked through them. Forest followed him to the car. “This calls for strong measures. Without her, your sight is in danger; your father’s departure nearly slew it, but I began to call to you in time.” “Oh!” said Forest, stopping in his tracks. “I nearly forgot. What is Temple Fell?” “ ‘What’ is not the thing you should be asking, Forest.” said Brown a little sternly. “As far as ‘where’ is concerned, you three already have the tools. Try asking the librarian for a good map.” “Hey! The car’s already done!” Forest exclaimed. “Yes, I did it on my way in.” the other replied. “But we may as well brush off the inch or so that fell since, and then I must be paid.” “You won’t come in for chocolate or something?” “The man of the house invites me.” smiled Brown. “But no. I have Merriweather’s brew, you may recall. I do not like to dilute it.” “I’m not the man.” said Forest. “I’m only fifteen.” “And next summer you will be able to drive and get work papers from school.” Brown rebuked. “Your mother refused the true man of the house, but one still remains.” Mrs. Lake was at the door already, and seemed in rather a hurry to pay Brown and get Forest inside. Brown took the money with a grave inclination of his head, and Mrs. Lake gave a big insincere smile and closed the door. The scrape of Brown’s shovel and the occasional swish of a passing car were the only sounds that seemed to penetrate the muffled isolation of the snowburied house. It seemed pleasant and cosy, and Mrs. Lake decided it was a good time to speak. Forest and she were still lingering over their oatmeal and it felt right to say it. “I’m having Cornello come over for dinner tonight.” she said aloud. “I think it’s time you met him. You’ll like him, Forest. He’ll come by at 7:00.” Forest stared into his oatmeal. “No.” he said. “What, honey? I didn’t quite—“ “I said no.” Forest stated, flatly. “You will not have him over here. He is not coming here. No.” She stared at him in utter disbelief. “Who do you think you…” “I am the man of this house.” Forest said. “But you…you can’t say who…” “I am not a child.” Forest interrupted, still in that frightening flat voice. “I am fifteen. And you are married to my father.” He expected her to get defensive or maybe hysterical. Instead she looked at him with commiseration. Even pity. “Forest, sweetie,” she said gently, “I was never married to your father.” She seemed to find it difficult to go on. “My parents left me this house. Then I met your father, and he moved in. And when…things didn’t work…he moved out.” Forest stared at her as if he had been turned to stone. He stared at her as she turned everything that he had known and he had been into ash about his ears. Out of wedlock. Not even divorced, but shacked up. He was a bastard child. His parents bore him in sin and lived in sin, and still piously went off to church every Sunday. He rose slowly from his chair. He grew higher and higher, till he stood there before her like some awful spirit of justice. Slowly he thrust forth his hand against her; she half expected to hear him say in Ghost Rider fashion, “You…guilty.” A random scrap of text floated through her mind: “…and the children shall sit in judgement over their parents.” Forest stared into her eyes as he stood above her. She had betrayed him. She had refused his father’s offer of marriage, but lived with him anyway. She had pretended to be a wife. She drove him away and postured as a victim, as a woman deserted, victim of a callous man. She had betrayed him since before she had conceived him. “You have sinned against me.” he said. He was conscious of the wrongs that he had suffered. He felt his grievances seething inside him, giving him anger, giving him power. He felt his anger lifting him up, making him higher, towering inside him. He felt the power of one wronged, the right of a victim to call down punishment, surging through his soul and his outstretched hand; he felt he could alter destinies, call down upon this woman any curse that he desired. The minutes passed. Still Forest stood, his hand stretched out against her, and she shrank still before him, held by his eyes, unable to move. Wretchedness washed over Forest as he let his arm fall. How could he curse his own mother? “What do you want of me?” Mrs. Lake quivered. Tears of bitter defeat stung his eyes. “Repent.” he spat out harshly, and turned and fled the room. Mrs. Lake gasped and came awake. She was actually shaking. Such was the emotional stress she had suffered in her dream she found tears flowing down her cheeks. Cornello turned over in the bed beside her and ran his hand comfortingly down her naked back. The thermostat in the room had deliberately been turned up as high as it would go and the dark air was cloyingly, deliciously warm. She pulled his hand away. “What was it, baby doll?” he asked sleepily. “A nightmare.” she whispered. “Well, hey, that’s why I’m here for you, baby. I can banish your nightmares.” he breathed throatily into her ear. “I have to go.” she said, her voice high, thin and taunt in her own ears. Afraid. “This was a mistake. I have to get home. I’m worried.” She brushed aside his vague assurances and gave him a quick kiss before putting on her clothes. Why was she feeling like this? She had these needs, didn’t she? She had to satisfy them somehow, right? Cornello loved her, so what was wrong? The drive from Big Island to the Small was short, but it was half-past four when she pulled in the drive and let herself in. She was up early, despite this. She had to know. It felt a little like arranging her own funeral as she made oatmeal and set out the bowls. She heard Forest come down not long after and stand in the doorway, and even with her back turned she felt the difference in his regard. She was almost afraid to turn around and look at him. “You were out late.” he stated. There was a darkness in his eyes, hurt and accusation, as they met hers. “Yeah, heh-heh.” she babbled nervously. “There was a party and we kinda lost track of time…” “You were with Cornello.” he said. Unable to quell the sudden panic in her breast, she looked at him beseechingly. Before the stare of her son she felt naked as she never had felt when men were ogling her in bed. This was shame-naked. He could see her very soul. Now he would grow, rise to unnatural heights and lift his hand in judgement against her… “What do you want of me?” she screamed. He was looking at her as he had looked in her dream, that awful look of rage, and cold judgement, and betrayal, that looked so alien in his thoughtful green eyes, his father’s eyes… “I want my father back.” he said. Then he left the room. He slammed his door. His heart boiled and churned badly enough to shake him as he stood. The dream, the terrible dream, where he had stood above her as he had stood this morning, where she had told him he was bastard and he knew he had been betrayed his whole life with her. Sickened, he remembered the power he had felt, of the fires of Heaven and Hell at his fingertips waiting for him to call them down, and how at the last he had refused to curse his mother. Dream or no dream he was glad of that choice. He knew she had had the same dream, he had seen it in her eyes, that in sleep their minds had met and spoken. He drew out of his desk the painting of the Stars and set to work. The cold deepened as January passed. There was a respite of 30° during an ice storm, and then it closed down upon Winsted like an iron hand. Lara Midwinter had to admit, as she wore thermals even indoors, that it was a little too cold even for her. Lilac spent most of the time wrapped in a quilt, and when Lara asked Ronnie Wendy how he was making out he admitted ruefully that he pretty much lived next to the fire. “You should see her.” said Danny, jerking his head at Lilac. “She hugs the stove all the time. I think she’s in love with it.” “Oh stovie-wovie, my little stovie-wovie…” Lilac moaned, getting both her sister and Ronnie to laugh. “She’s going to marry the stove.” said Lara sweetly. “With a radiator as the maid of honor.” “That would certainly make for a warm bed.” Ronnie put in. “Yeah, if she got all Shakespeare on it she wouldn’t be able to accuse it, ‘Too often is my bed cold.’ ” Dan added. “Hey, Lara’s the nut on literature, not you!” chided Lye. “Yeah,” said Danny, rolling his eyes, “and Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis, and…” “Hey, with me it’s worse.” Ronnie said blandly. “You can add Tolkien and Bionicle to the mix.” “Aren’t you kind of old for Legos?” said Lara. “No one’s too old for a good story.” laughed Ronnie. “I never was interested in the Bionicle sets. The storyline behind it, though…” He ran out of thought and fell silent. The conversation came to a pause, as everyone had pretty much exhausted their topics. “Hey, remember when that strange man was talking about names?” Lilac said all of a sudden. “We were going to look them up. Did anyone have any luck?” “Well, actually I did that a couple weeks ago.” said Ronnie slowly. “Ronald means ‘counsellor to kings’, but my mom insists they just baptised me as Ronnie. She felt it was right. And ‘Lara’, that means ‘protection’ in Latin, but it’s also a nickname for Larissa, which is ‘graceful’. Lilac is a lot more boring; the Latin for it is Syringia and the family is Oleaceae, olive. So I guess whoever named the lilac had just about had it with the Latin.” “Or the Latin name came much later.” said Lye. “Protection.” mused Lara. “That doesn’t—feel right.” “Yeah, that so does not suit you.” twitted Lilac. “Now if it had something to do with stars, on the other hand…” “Stars?” said Ronnie, looking at her curiously. “Yes,” said Lara resignedly, “I’m always getting poetry flashes about stars.” “I find stars fascinating.” said Ronnie. “When you look at them from some lonely place, like deep in the woods or from a hilltop or empty field, they almost seem—almost as if they were once alive and now are not, and you can hear echoes, as it were…echoes of some ancient disaster…” “The stars are weeping.” said Lara, half to herself. “But the funny thing is, they’re not alive at all, they’re just great furnaces of gas. Why does it seem natural to personify the stars, and give genders to the sun and moon, when the reality is exactly the reverse? Instinct usually corresponds to reality. So why even in this age of science do we still feel a shadow, as it were, of mysticality about the heavens?” “Maybe because they once were different.” said Lara. She was still thinking about that conversation as another iron winter evening closed down upon Riverton and the thermometer fell inexorably below 10. She put on hat and coat and went outside to stand upon the hill her house was built on, just for a little. It was quiet, without even a sigh of wind, and the grim air felt bearable as long as she didn’t move around. It was quiet. Hoar collected soundlessly like snow upon the icy twigs above her, and an equally icy haze seemed to ring the very stars. Strange, cold and considering their gaze seemed to Lara as she brushed at the dew collecting from her breath upon her lashes. In the deepness of the silence the faint singing seemed almost part of the background, as if it came from the earth or quivered out of the motionless pines and stiff oaks around her; and Lara became aware of it with slow and dawning awe, for although it grew no louder every word thrummed distinct and hard within her heart, and it was the same song that she had heard snatches of, twice before, always interrupted. You do not know of the peril ‘mid which we stand, You do not know of the dangers of this land, Roads that were made by no mortal being’s hand Paths leading nowhere but down. On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well, On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well! As it sang the refrain that had been drowned by the uncanny wind, the wanderer’s voice boomed suddenly deep and rolling as thunder under trees. Then it went on in the same haunting, mournful lilt as it began, into the verses she had already heard. Empty heavens filling till the night is spangled day Stars so close and banded as to drive the dark away Stars swirl-warring as the heavens shake and play Doomed as they stand near and say… On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well, On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well! Shapes and shadows form as they parade across the sky The world that they mirror as they all go down to die Stars unwinking gaze upon the Earthland going by Shining upon their own doom. On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well, On Temple Fell, on Temple Fell, Let all who enter enter well! Travel Lane wearily chopped at the base of the swamp maple sapling with a hatchet as he father shoved. With a groan of snapping fibers the last stubborn wood yielded and the six-inch tree crashed down onto the snow. They were cutting a little high up on the stem on account of the deep snow, which overlay a rather tenuous layer of ice across the swamp. “For the hundredth time, why can’t we just use a chainsaw?” she said as they rested. “I know you have one.” “Your grandmother was very insistent on that point.” Rufus Lane said a little wryly. “You must have heard her, going on about how the barrier must not be defiled by machinery. I didn’t want to fight about it or I’m sure she’d hobble down here right through the snow to clout me one if she heard a chainsaw going. And she’s kind of old, so we really don’t want to put her through that much strain.” Both chuckled. The sharp chopping of an axe rang in the now-quiet swamp some way off, causing both Lanes to look up with some surprise. “Did you get your men friends to help?” Mr Lane said, a little doubtfully. “Nobody wanted to come.” complained Travel. “They only come if girls are there, and I guess I’m not pretty enough.” “And here I was, thinking you the man magnet of the town.” “Dad! I keep telling you, I don’t have a boyfriend!” “Well, I still want to see who our helper is.” said Mr. Lane as two maples fell in quick succession. He pushed through the dense growth of alder and winterberry, Travel following just behind. They emerged in a rapidly widening clearing amid the heart of the winterberry belt. A lean active-looking man with short grey hair had just cut a two-inch sapling with one blow of a large long-handled axe, that seemed to have a double blade. He caught it even as it came down, hefting it in one hand like a javelin, and hurled it beyond the swamp-border. “Oh. Um, hello.” he muttered awkwardly when he saw them, touching one gloved hand to his brow. He wasn’t wearing a coat, just a plaid flannel shirt, but a coat did seem to be lying some way off in the snow. “Well, said Mr. Lane, looking around, “I must say I’m glad of the help, but what’s the occasion?” “Your winterberry seemed a bit choked.” the man said. “You looking for work?” said Mr. Lane. “No,” the man answered, leaning on his great axe, “offering it, actually. You’d have taken all year to get even this far if I let you do it all yourself.” His ax was the strangest thing Travel had seen: two-headed, plain but powerful, the wooden handle shapely and smooth, and curiously lined, as if all sorts of angular letters had been carved with intricate skill into the wood. “So, you, like, go around clearing folks’ winterberry for free?” “Not folks’. Only yours. The Lane house must be defended when the Road comes again. Am I right, young Traveller?” “You’ve said as much before.” she said, ignoring the pun on her name: from his lips and in that grave tone, it seemed fitting. “Dad, he’s all right. He seems to know Grandmother Lane from way back.” “Not her exactly,” the strange man said, hefting his axe. With a single swing he cut through a tree six inches thick. “Her father was heir when I last came. She knows about me, though.” He hurled the tree spear-fashion into the woods. “Oh. Well, I guess you can keep on going, then. We’ll just use the branch-cutters on the alder thickets. Do you want a beer or something? You sure you don’t need money?” The man in brown lifted his axe to one shoulder. “But I do not have need.” he answered. “If I have no need, I should not accept, for what I receive, I must account for. I ride for free. None say me nay, and I need none.” “Ah.” said Mr. Lane, looking a little fuddled. “Well, if you need any help, give a yell. We’ll be back toward the pond. Come on, Travel.” Using the new steel green-and-grey hedge-trimmers was easier than a hatchet, but tedious as the blade kept slipping whenever Travel had a good grip and eating diagonally into the wood, and she then had to yank it back and forth until it came free. “Having trouble?” said the man in brown. “I didn’t even hear you.” Travel gasped. “Do you always sneak up on people like that?” “I move from one place to another.” he answered. Taking the clippers from her he looked at them with some contempt. “I thought so. Cheap modern design, made by slaves in China far away for a little pay, who are not proud to say….Try one of mine.” Travel stared at the huge antique branch-cutters he was holding out. Worn curved handles smooth with use made of wood, heat-clamped metal sleeves halfway up their length, great powerful mandibles and a blade much bigger than hers. The metal was dark with oil, but the edge of the blade shone bright. “That must be like a hundred years old.” she said in awe. “Closer to nine hundred, actually.” the man replied. “I’ve had it for a while. Give it a spin.” Dubiously Travel took the ancient cutters and set them to the alder stem She squeezed and wiggled but it didn’t cut. “It’s pretty obvious you never did anything useful in your life.” he said heavily. “If you insist on using your arms alone, of course you’ll have no cutting power. Unless your arms are like mine. Here, wedge it between your elbow and side—like so—or use your knee. Wrap your arm around. See, now your cutting power is at least double. There!” as the alder stem parted like butter. “Use them well, they’ll use you well, I always say.” “Grandmother is really eager to see you.” said Travel. “Ah, but perhaps I am not so eager to see her.” he said mysteriously. “I am not at her beck and call. I am the one who does the calling, and I call where I wish.” “Are you Wayfinder?” Travel demanded. “He’d be pretty old if he was still around, now, wouldn’t he?” smiled Brown. “But he is by no means the only mystery in these parts. There is the Wild Man of Winsted, and the Green Lady, and the Witch of Winchester as well. Never heard of them? Ah well, you’ll have some questions to keep the old woman busy. But I must be getting back to work.” Travel heard the sound of his ax as steady as a woodpecker for the next hour. Then she had to use the bathroom, so she worked her way over to the cleared part, and then plowed along the pond track to the drive. Grandmother Lane was walking down it, bearing a tray with steaming mugs. “Call your father, Travel.” she said. “I have cookies in the bag.” “Glad you brought extra hot cocoa.” said Travel cheerily. “That man in brown leather came over to help clear.” “Where?” demanded Grandmother Lane, setting down the tray. “Take me to him!” “Grandmother, you’ll slip or tire yourself out or…” But Travel gave in and piloted the old woman to the winterberry border. Every tree was felled, and thrown neatly past the swamp in even piles. Mr. Lane was obliviously clipping away at the alder nearby, but the winterberry around him and as far as they could see was free of trees. “He’s…a bit of a fast worker…” Travel said faintly. “You did tell him I wanted to see him, I hope?” Travel repeated the man’s strange words. When she was done, she was alarmed to see her old relative seem to sag, and tears glistened in her eyes. “And I waited so long…and longed so much…” she murmered. “If it is so, then I must bear it. But you, child, do not keep from me anything he said! What else did he tell you?” “He comes and goes.” said Travel. She repeated the rest of the mysterious conversation. “Oh, and I asked him if he was Wayfinder.” “And what was his answer?” “He sort of laughed at me. Said Wayfinder would be pretty old by now, but he wasn’t the only mysterious person in these parts. He then mentioned a Wild Man of Wibsted, a Green Lady, and a Witch of Winchester. What are they?” “Ah, the Wild Man.” murmered Grandmother Lane. “He appeared about a hundred years ago—1895, to be exact—and there was quite an uproar. I studied the accounts. Most of them are the typical livestock-missing-giant-shape-seen-in-field ghost story, but two of them were actual encounters. The first was out by Losaw Road, near the elevation known as Second Cobble, where a dour upstanding selectman out raspberry picking was accosted by a tall manlike being, naked and covered in long black hair, who howled and roared at him and then ran. The second—and to me far more genuine—was close by here, on the farm of someone named POerkins, who had a goo view of Colebrook Center. He went out to his barn and saw a tall guant man all garbed in rags of brown, long wild black hair falling about him, a tin pail in one hand. Lifting his other hand he pointed toward Colebrook Center, and said, ‘What place is that?’ Perkins stammered out that it was, and hurried inside to get the others, but when he returned the Wild Man was gone.” “Why do you think that was genuine, when the other wasn’t?” Grandmother Lane took up the empty tray absently; Travel and Mr. Lane between them had drained the mugs dry during the narration, and now announcing he was cold Mr. Lane headed inside with the mugs. Travel took her grandmother’s elbow as they walked carefully up the drive; it was hilly going out of the swamp. “Selectman Smith doubtless saw what he claimed, or thought he did.” she said at last. “But he was described as a practical man, one not given to flights of fancy or telling anything other than the strictest truth. Have you ever had to explain yourself to a policeman, Travel?” “Um, once when they thought they smelled pot in my schoolbag, because I’d been hanging out with some guys who were smoking it and the smell got on me….” “You know, then, how difficult it is to convince them that the obvious is obvious and not guilt. Even when they accept your explanation (after hours of skeptical and bone-headed questioning) they do it with a look that tells you they don’t believe you but don’t have enough evidence to prove what you undoubtedly had done, so they’ll let you go for now. That, Travel, is the mindset of the solid citizen, the practical man who doesn’t indulge in fancies. Now would you believe such a one if he said he saw a wild hairy ape-man?” “But, Grandmother,” said Travel, perplexed, “that doesn’t make sense.” “What I’m getting at, child, is that men like that cannot see the self-evident and refuse to admit the obvious. Now let us suppose there was a man with a color problem in his eyes, so that he saw red as more like the color of brown mud. Let us also suppose that because he had a position as pillar of the commonwealth or whatnot, that his down-to-earth descriptions of dull muddy sunsets were accepted as practical over the fanciful delusions of poets who insisted the sunset was bright crimson. Ordinary men glanced up at the red sky and vaguely assumed they were afflicted with fancies because they saw bright red—after all, Selectman Smith is a solid man not given to flights of fancy, and he says the sunset is muddy brown! Would you take that selectman’s word, if you had been asleep and missed the entire sunset, and what is more had seen very few sunsets?” “You’re saying,” said Travel slowly, “that Selectman Smith had something wrong with his eyes?” “Perhaps not his physical eyes,” said Grandmother Lane, “but the messages sent by the eyes are sorted by the brain and interpreted by the mind. A mind too stolid and practical, if it saw a ghost, would dismiss it instantly and automatically as a delusion—or if not right then, certainly soon after.” “You are an undigested bit of gruel…” said Travel. “Exactly. So, while this kind of man might be relied on to give evidence, say, in a murder or concerning the fire on Elm St, he would be the absolute worst to testify for cases involving the extraordinary—because through sheer habit he would twist everything he saw into the ordinary.” “So if, for instance, he really saw some strange mysterious being, he would believe he was seeing a big hairy caveman.” “Because that is the closest thing to fantasy his closed and blinded mind would possess—the Missing Link of Darwin days.” Grandmother Lane nodded. “While a frightened farmer whose mind is kept connected to reality by crops and goats and chickens, might be more prone to imagine things, but would also be more trusty as regards an actual manifestation of something extraordinary. And yet even he may not have seen what he said he saw.” “What do you mean?” said Travel as she opened the door of the detached little house. The old woman took off her coat and draped a shawl over her shoulders. “Blow up the fire, would you, child?” she said, drawing her armchair closer to the fireplace. Travel took the battered old bellows from their rack and obediently puffed the coals with them, until flames leaped up around the log. “Ah. It is cold today. But think, Travel. The Wild Man pointed and said ‘What place is that?’ Perkins saw Colebrook in that direction and assumed he meant the village. But what if he was pointing to something along that line?” “You mean him asking Perkins was a rhetorical question.” “Socratic, more.” Grandmother Lane answered. “As if he was pointing something out, leaving a record he knew would be handed down…so that somebody, perhaps even us, would figure out his message.” “You think he is Wayfinder?” “The Wild Man is almost sixteen years too early.” the old woman answered. “The centenary was 1911, from the Wayfinder’s appearance I mean. Besides, your man in brown seems to think they are separate entities.” “Well, he didn’t actually say that.” Travel defended herself. “He mocked at me when I asked if he was Wayfinder and said that wasn’t the only legend.” “Well, if he is Wayfinder and doesn’t want to be known, of course he would deny it.” Grandmother Lane said sharply. “But the Green Lady is supposed to be just a ghost walking in the old Danbury Quarter Cemetary, usually as a green mist or lights. The Witch of Winchester was a woman named only Mrs. Filley, of the Beach family, one of Winchester’s first settlers. She seems to have been of the petty loom-bewitching and butter-ruining variety, but there’s no record of her death.” “You could just look at the gravestones around town.” “The oldest ones are marked only by uncarved rocks.” replied Grandmother. “Rich people were the only ones who could hire carvers to come up here, or a perfectly cut slab to be shipped up and down the Old North Road.” “Where was Perkin’s farm?” “That’s your school project, I guess, child.” her grandmother answered. “Get a topographic map and find any place overlooking and close to Colebrook. Then check the land records in the Town Hall. Sooner or later you’ll find Perkins’ farm.” January 22nd was a Saturday this year. The iron cold lifted a little bit, getting into the 20s, and Forest went for a walk up Wakefield Boulevard, the fancy name for the shore road. He passed Janet’s Corner and the driveway of Strong’s Island, a conical hill surrounded by white ice with a high sprawling house standing castle-like upon it. Big Island loomed sinister and pine-girt beyond it, also steep and high. Rounding Sucker Brook Cove the road passed under the shadow of the Sucker Brook Dam, a massive flood-control berm of piled rocks installed with great labor after the ’55 Flood and never justified by any flood following. “A good day to you, Forest.” said the man in brown. He was leaning against the rail fence above the cove, where fishermen loitered in summer, but the snow lay high and deep along lake and road. “Hey, Mr. Brown.” said Forest. “Do you still guess or do you know?” Forest dropped his eyes. “I know.” “Mm.” said Brown. “You did well. I was very pleased with your behavior. Nothing else could have rattled her enough…unless the rider of the darkness should come to her in person. Not going on the March this year?” “Nah.” said Forest. “My church was getting a group, but I guess Mom didn’t want to foot the bill. So I’m here.” “It is a beautiful sight, and a sad one.” said the man in brown. “For thirty-eight years this country has been pouring the blood of its’ unborn into the fabric of the earth, and the horror of that evil rots at the very structure of reality. And every year from the ends of the earth busloads of people gather and march in protest. A lovely sight—and a futile one as well.” “Each year is in the hundreds of thousands.” said Forest. “Yes,” agreed Brown, “and yet it is becoming an institution, a cultural festival, accomplishing nothing. How many, I wonder, go there to protest abortion? How may only go to be with friends, or as one goes on a field trip, or simply because to protest something feels good? That is why I say it is a sight of sorrow.” “It sends Congress a message!” Brown chuckled bitterly. “Did you ever think that nobody really wants abortion to end? For if it ended, so would the March for Life; and with its’ end, how many jobs would be lost? How many people lose income? Bus companies want the March; I heard they charge a hundred per adult now instead of fifty. Restaurants all along the route, where floods of hungry pro-lifers stop off; businesses and malls in DC gain a sudden surge of business from pro-lifers passing time until the March begins. Vendors crowd the way. Sign makers, printers, subways, toll gates, overtime for countless workers—the very economy of DC depends on the sudden boost in the middle of winter’s slow time! No, Forest, march as they wish, nobody wants abortion to cease.” “So peaceful protest won’t work?” “Has it ever?” Brown said quietly. “Peacefulness means nothing to the men with guns; they watch warily but they know they are safe. Within the human system only armed revolution can actually do anything; and the horrors that follow on that, are only justifiable in the gravest situations. Only if aided from Above can men drive out evil.” “And such aid is not forthcoming.” “When evil is committed,” the man in brown said musingly, “it stains reality. Not just in the soul of the doer, or the lives of those affected by the deed; an evil act leaves a blot, a stain upon the very structure of existence in the place where it was done. It is done in the spirit, but it redounds on matter.” “Is that why there are haunted houses where a murder was done or magic practiced or suicides?” said Forest. “In part.” answered the man in brown. “The stain opens a gate, as it were, for evil to grow. The gate may lie dormant. Or a damned ghost might use it to haunt. Or—worst of all—a devil. The Church was made in part as God’s answer to this problem. She has a tremendous reservoir of power and graces meant specifically to hose down, as it were, these stains of evil. But power needs an agent to act through; it cannot act if it is not wielded. And so few Catholics even know of the power, let alone use it, save unconsciously by prayer or ritual. And that is bad, Forest. That is very bad.” “I don’t understand.” “If the evil being done is too great and the power poured against it too little, it spreads like mold, delving deeper, rotting, crumbling matter and spirit, until the very structure of reality itself is imperilled.” “You mean Armaggeddon.” “Yes.” Brown replied. “Sooner or later. Some day the world will end. That is one way it may end…another way is by the fearsome engines of man…there are others as well, beyond even my sight. But the world ends when God says it may end, and not before. As a result there is a terrible remedy in the making of Creation for just such a time, to counter the rotting of evil. For forty years the blood of innocents has eroded the foundations of the world. Abortion is only one of the evils this darkened world spews forth every day.” “Is there no hope, then?” The man in brown shrugged. “Hope is the virtue by which we firmly trust that God will provide the means for us to attain eternal happiness according to His promises.” “I never heard it put like that.” “Not many even of the Catholics have. That’s Baltimore Catechism. Seldom used in CCD nowadays.” He hitched up his collar. “Brr! The cold is growing. Tonight is supposed to be well below zero. Make sure you stay warm, Forest. You should be heading back.” Forest ducked his head and muttered a farewell as he turned to walk back along the road. The phone was ringing when he got home. Mrs. Lake answered and Forest could hear her sounding rather surprised. He marched into the room and tapped her on the shoulder. “Who is it?” he said. “Oh, wait, he just came in. It’s apparently for you, Forest. Do you know a girl named Brooke?” “Yup.” said Forest. He took the phone coolly and walked as far away as the cord would allow. Mrs. Lake retired into the kitchen. “Hullo.” “Forest?” said the sweet husky voice of Brooke. “Oh good. I’m glad you’re in. Bell and I are going to the library to check out that hint our mysterious friend in brown gave you. You want me to pick you up too, or can you persuade your mom to drive you?” “Lemme ask. Um, Mom? I need to go to the library.” “Say we’re partners on a school research project.” Brooke said quickly. Forest relayed the explanation, which satisfied Mrs. Lake, and soon she had dropped him off at the Beardsley library. Bell and Brook arrived not long after, to Forest’s relief: he wanted them to do all the asking. They greeted him warmly and then headed over to the front desk. The young pretty librarian was in today, her hair pulled back in a short tail, wearing a blue-and-white knitted sweater. She looked up with her usual button-like bright smile. “Do you need help?” “Yes. Do you have, like, maps that show the hills around here?” said Brooke. “I think what you would be looking for is a topographic map.” the librarian said. “There should be an atlas of Connecticut maps right in the main reading room,” as she headed into the adult room with all three following, “yes, right here. Do you know how to use this map?” “All I see are squiggly lines.” said Bell. The map seemed to consist of loops and whorls and blobs formed by thread-like lines drawn very close together at times and at times farther apart, with twisting streams and roads and black squares dotted along them. “Those are contour lines. They connect places that are at the same elevation above sea level. You see this line here, marked 950? Every place along that line is 950 feet above sea level. The dark lines are 50 feet apart, the fainter ones 10, and where they’re close together the ground is steeper. Think of it as what happens when you put a heap of dirt in a puddle: the water forms a mark at water level, and as it sinks, new marks form, and if you looked straight down at the sand, you would see lines like these. In the cover here it marks which towns are covered by what quadrangle. You all set now?” “I think I get it.” said Bell. The librarian went back to her desk and the children flipped to Map 19, which covered Winsted. It was hard to get used to at first, as the streets had all those funny dots along them, but when Forest saw one on his island—which sure enough was marked Wintergreen Island—they realized these were houses. “Isn’t the Methodist church right near Lake St?” said Bell. “No, corner of Main and High. Oh, this must be High St right here. Then this bigger box would be the Methodist church.” “It even has a tiny cross on it.” “Where does it show how far a mile is?” said Forest. “Oh, this bar here must be it. Anyone got a pen?” said Brooke. “Just use this pamphlet.” Bell snatched a brochure on Child Abuse and placed her thumb along the margin, marking how long the mile bar was. By this means they measured out a circle two miles around the church, and began examining the hills within that radius. “Well,” said Brooke, “there’s this Indian Meadow place in the north…there’s one end of that big mountain above Tatro’s Pond, over on the NE of Winsted…one of those big hills above Super Stop & Shop…” “The mountain above my island!” exclaimed Forest. “That’s not really a mountain, that’s just a sort of edge of highland I live on.” said Brooke. “Hm—this funny hill above 3rd Bay on the Lake…” “These two look more promising.” said Bell. “That long one west of Crystal Lake, up past Boyd…” “And that hot-dog-shaped ridge with this ‘Aqueduct’ line running through it, NW of Crystal.” Brooke finished. “That one’s summit is exactly two miles from the church. And look how narrow it is…and high.” “It does look like a fell.” murmered Forest. Brooke got to her feet with a sigh. “Well, first thing when the snow melts, we try that one, the one west of Crystal, and the mountain above North Main. We see what they’re like and what things are going on.” “Oh! Roman numerals!” exclaimed Bell. Three of the adult computers were empty, and darting over to the table they sat upon, they chose one that faced away from the big window and the sunlight that was pouring in. “I think we kids aren’t supposed to use these.” said Forest. “It’s just for a sec.” and Bell swiftly typed “Roman numerals” in the search engine. “M means a thousand.” said Forest, looking over her shoulder at the Wikidipedia entry she had clicked on. “Hmmm…oh, here’s a table. One thousand…one M…two thousand, two M’s…. “What were those numbers you saw again?” said Forest. “MMXVII.” Bell rattled off. “2000…ten…five…two I’s, that means seven…2017.” said Brooke. “Closed till 2017.” Bell said blankly. “This is only 2011! We’re doomed! I can’t wait that long!” “Oh, you’re still young, you’ll make it.” “I’ll be old then! I’ll be a decaying skeleton with spiderwebs on it!” wailed Bell. “And the world ends in 2012.” Forest grinned. The Mayan calendar was based on complex cycles, each cycle bigger than the one before it; twenty of these made a baktan Cycle, which was the farthest any inscription went, though the numbering system would simply indicate another baktan Cycle was then to begin. However, rumors about the Sun lining up with the center of the Milky Way had since fueled all sorts of absurd end-of-the-world scares, and it was becoming a running joke in Christian circles. “Hey, don’t feel too bad.” said Brooke blithely. “Our dates are 6 years off anyway.” Forest and Bell stared at her. “Huh?” Brooke grew serious. “Pastor Miller was explaining the other week that the monk who worked out our dating system got the time of Christ’s birth wrong. He fixed it in the Year of Rome 747, calculating from Herod’s death, but Herod actually died in the Year of Rome 743, as near as we can guess from the chronology of his last years compared with the length of Augustus’ reign. So what that means is Christ was really born in 6 BC. Which means our dates are 6 years off.” “So…to find the real date…if the Year 1 AD is really 7 AD…then we add 6 to the date.” said Forest slowly. “2011…plus 6…equals 20…17.” Bell breathed. The three children were dead silent as they absorbed the tremendous discovery. “The Road opens this year.” said Bell. “The Road returns this year.” Brooke corrected. “It returns on Christmas Eve.” said Forest. “Christmas Eve, this year.” “So we’ve got a whole year to find Temple Fell.” said Brooke happily.